The difficulties were however considerable: there were the endless quarrels about property, the reluctance to part with an old site, and, chief difficulty of all, the utmost hurry of rebuilding in order to house the people before the approaching winter.
Pepys[117] says that in April 1667:—
‘Moorefields have houses two stories high in them, and paved streets, the city having let leases for seven years, which will be very much to the hindering of the building of the city; but it was considered that the streets cannot be passable in London till the whole street be built; and several that had got ground of the city for charity to build sheds on, had got the trick presently to sell that for 60l. which did not cost them 20l. to put up; and so the city being very poor in stock, thought it as good to do it themselves and therefore let leases for seven years of the ground in Moorefields.’
Thus Wren had by no means clear ground on which to work, and an opportunity was forfeited, which, absit omen, may never recur, of making London one of the beautiful cities of the world.
Important sanitary improvements were, however, made: the houses were not built of wood; the principal streets were less narrow; and, above all, the lingering contagion was burnt away. Nothing less would probably have availed; but the fire was a cleansing one, and left behind it this blessing, that though more than two hundred years have elapsed the plague has not, as yet, reappeared.
The Custom House of London was one of the first buildings to be restored, and Wren began it in 1668. It was a stately stone edifice, built in three sides of a square, with an open court in front. The same fate befell this building which had overtaken its predecessor; in 1719 it was burnt down.
FAITH COGHILL.
Besides all these architectural and scientific cares, Wren had business of his own on hand, and was at this time engaged to be married to a lady four years younger than himself, whom probably he had known for some time. His bride was Faith, daughter of Sir Thomas Coghill and Elizabeth his wife, who lived at Bletchingdon in Oxfordshire. Sir Thomas was sheriff of the county in 1633, and was knighted at Woodstock in that year, the same in which King Charles was crowned in Scotland. Sir Thomas was a grandson of Marmaduke Coghill,[118] of Coghill, Knaresborough. He married, in 1622, Elizabeth Sutton, the heiress of Horsell and some lands in Surrey. Faith, their daughter, was born on March 17, 1636, and baptized in the same month at Bletchingdon by her relation the Rev. John Viell, the then rector. It seems likely that Wren made her acquaintance while both were children when staying with his sister Susan and her husband, Dr. William Holder, at Bletchingdon Rectory. It may have been Faith who comforted him when, on June 3, 1656, they laid Dean Wren in the chancel of Bletchingdon Church.
One letter to Faith Coghill from her lover, exists among the curious autographs of the ‘Parentalia,’[119] its delicate, finished and yet firm writing, eminently characteristic of Christopher Wren: it is as follows—
‘Madam,—The artificer having never before mett with a drowned watch, like an ignorant physician has been soe long about the cure that he hath made me very unquiet that your commands should be soe long deferred; however, I have sent the watch at last and envie the felicity of it, that it should be soe neer your side, and soe often enjoy your Eye, and be consulted by you how your time shall passe while you employ your hand in your excellent workes. But have a care of it, for I put such a Spell into it that every Beating of the Ballance will tell you ’tis the pulse of my Heart which labours as much to serve you and more trewly than the watch; for the watch I believe will sometimes lie, and sometimes perhaps be idle and unwilling to goe, having received so much injury by being drenched in that briny bath, that I dispair it should ever be a trew servant to you more. But as for me (unlesse you drown me too in my teares) you may be confident I shall never cease to be,